2G Did I break my GSX?

[TallestHERETIC]

Hey everybody! I own a 1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX. It is fully optioned and I think it is the special performance package. It comes with two LSDs, sport tuned suspension, slotted rotors all around and even 2 piston calipers for each wheel. Now that worries me because I think I might've messed something up!

Anyways, I went for a test drive about an hour ago in empty streets in the middle of the night. I'm learning how to drive stick but I am getting better at it.
I made it all the way to third and then it made this sudden chatter/clunking noise. It was pretty loud yet violent. Pushed the clutch pedal all the way in and it still did it. The whole car vibrated!

Reverse, 1st and 2nd are perfect. From neutral, all gears are perfect if I select each, one at a time. When I drive in a straight line, it only seems to be third that makes that noise.

What could I be doing wrong? The GSX is totally stock, BTW. It also has 91K on it.

 

[Pauls99Gst]

lift your car up an pull off that little cover that gaurds your flywheel and tranny and see if you can see anything or if any oil in in the housing, if not, drain you tranny fluid and see if theres any large flakes, if not to either. I would look into it being the clutch and you cant see it but isnt likely because it only happens in third but look an get back to us.

 

[johnovision27]

Well, on the plus side, it sounds like it's a tranny problem so your motor SHOULD be ok. In addition to the suggestion above, you could try putting the car up on jacks (4 corners) put it in 3rd, get a friend to depress the clutch as to not rotate the engine and see if you fine any points that don't feel 'smooth'. Do it in first and second as they seem to be ok from what you've mentioned and then in third and then compare what you feel.

Just because it's smooth doesn't give your tranny a clean bill of health because clearly there are some issues. It's just an easy way to check before you start removing things.

check bearings, axles, and the drive terrain. It's possible you might just be hitting some kind of mechanical resonance. And hell, the cars already up on jacks, so check it!

 

[viperlp01]

It sounds diff related.

 

[TallestHERETIC]

OK! Just did the once over earlier this morning. Tranny fluid is a blood kind of color and looks pretty recent. Didn't find any flakes, metal particles and no leaks on the ground or engine/tranny, even after letting it idle for a 15 minutes.

The car is able to move smoothy if i put it in third gear as the starting gear. But it makes the chatter noise as I shift from 1st to 2nd and then 3rd.

Is it possible I need to let it idle more/longer so the tranny gets more time to lubricate itself? Im stumped on this problem....

Do any of you guys happen to know the shift points for a GSX? Could that help? It didn't come with a owner's manual and I would imagine it would be in there.

 

[Guilty1s]

Is gear oil red??? I hope that there isnt ATF in there?

 

[99gst_racer]

Is gear oil red??? I hope that there isnt ATF in there?

Some is. It will vary from each manufacturer.

 

['97boostinGST]

Is gear oil red??? I hope that there isnt ATF in there?

Redline fluids are.

 

[xtr3me]

Something like this happened to me, it was the spring in the clutch broke, made a lot of noise and was hard to get into gear, id take off the cover and take a peak in there to see if you seen anything out of place.

 

[TallestHERETIC]

Looks like I found the problem!

Finally got a chance to do a test drive again. Apparently my tires are dry rotted and have low tire pressure which is making the car vibrate violently at lower speeds. SMH..... Should've never let it sit for 3 months!


All gears are in perfect shape as well when i went through them. Clucth is in near perfectly new condition. Looks like the PO didn't even touch it at all when they shifted!

 

[H4G64T]

Hey everybody! I own a 1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX. It is fully optioned and I think it is the special performance package. It comes with two LSDs, sport tuned suspension, slotted rotors all around and even 2 piston calipers for each wheel. Now that worries me because I think I might've messed something up!

Your car was not bone stock at some point in it's life.

- These cars only come with a rear differential LSD no matter the package.
- GSX suspensions were all the same as well.
- All of them used Brembo blanks from factory, no slotted rotors.
- Only the fronts came with 2 piston calipers.

Source: ASA

 

[Boostinsideways]

Yeah I can second the Suspension bit.

You can get vented rotors, but not slotted rotors. Maybe some confusion there.

No Rear twin pot calipers stock. Maybe 3k GT upgrade.... Would look oemish.

Glad you found your problem.

 

[bryanwheat]

I guess you could consider the viscous coupler in the tranny a limited slip if you wanted. But that separates power from front to rear. But like stated the only real option for lsd anything is the rear end. Also there is no suspension package, they are all the same thing from the factory. All 2g awd's have 2 piston front calipers, and no 2g's come with slotted rotors. Basically everything the guy before me said, .

 

[TallestHERETIC]

Wait a minute, isn't slotted the kind with the lines coming out from the center? or is it the holes? I think I meant to say vented. They DO have lines in them. You guys have good eyes!

Yup, all four wheels have them but they are pretty old and rusty/corroded, same with the cali's too, double pistons all around. I guess they went through the trouble of getting new wheels, too. Might be possible it is the 3KGT upgrade! Does it actually fit? They are totally different cars...

Lucky me if its true! The braking is very sudden too. Are GSX's supposed to do that? Same thing with my RS before I HL'd it.

I don't actually have the owners manual in my car but it might be possible it was upgraded very early in its life. It came from MA. I said sport tuned suspension because it looks and feels nothing like other GSX trims I've found, yet looks like it is OEM. Very aggressive but also very responsive. As for the LSD's, it looks like the PO put one in the middle in addition to the rear.

 

[jtmcinder]

- These cars only come with a rear differential LSD no matter the package.

Nope. There's a VC on the center diff, too.

- GSX suspensions were all the same as well.

Nope. There were two different sets of springs on 2G AWDs. They can be told apart by the color of the dot.

- All of them used Brembo blanks from factory, no slotted rotors.

Half right. The stock rotors are blanks, but they weren't made by Brembo.

- Only the fronts came with 2 piston calipers.

Correct.

 

[jtmcinder]

Wait a minute, isn't slotted the kind with the lines coming out from the center? or is it the holes? I think I meant to say vented. They DO have lines in them. You guys have good eyes!

The stock front rotors were straight-veined vented blanks.

As for the LSD's, it looks like the PO put one in the middle in addition to the rear.

As mentioned above, it came with VCs in the center and rear.

 

[Boostinsideways]

I think its just the fact you have 4 wheel twin pot brakes with a nice sized pad/rotor. They aren't bad breaks for stock tbqh.

As for them being rusted, mine rust up after sitting for a 3-5 days. Its just surface rust and is normally removed from regular use. Just take a nice drive with your clutch riding the break pedal for about 1-2 tenths of a mile. Don't push all the way down, just enough to feel a bit of drag. It clean the rotors up rather nicely.

Cross Drilled Rotor

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Slotted Rotor

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Vented Rotor

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Yes 3000gt brakes are pretty close to direct bolt on.
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/han...4-2pot-rear-calipers-rotors-bolt-onto-2g.html

The evo brembos are pretty much bolt on for the rear as well. The front's require special brackets.

 

[jtmcinder]

Nice post. But be careful about this:

The evo brembos are pretty much bolt on for the rear as well. The front's require special brackets.

That was true up until the Evo X. The rear brakes on an Evo X are quite strange and different, as I was sad to learn recently. I can't back-date my Evo X's rears to anything from a DSM, which is a bummer as it means that my options for 15" wheels are (a) custom or (b) $1500 Group-N stuff.

 

[H4G64T]

Nope. There's a VC on the center diff, too.

A viscous coupler is not an LSD.

Nope. There were two different sets of springs on 2G AWDs. They can be told apart by the color of the dot.

Incorrect. This time I came with images to prove you wrong.

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As you can see here all 96+ came with the same rear springs, regardless of transmission type. Since the OP has a 99, do the math.

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And as you can see here all manual transmissions came with the same springs and all automatic transmissions came with the same springs. There is no special sport tuned suspension from Mitsubishi.

 

[jtmcinder]

A viscous coupler is not an LSD.

I'm going to ignore the stuff not relevant to this thread, but you're getting real close to getting some more negatives.

There are two kinds of VCs. There are VCs that actually connect an axle to the transmission, such as on certain Mercedes, and there are VCs that are piggybacked onto a diff, such as we have in DSMs. The former are not LSDs, but the latter are.

As to the springs, you do realize that you just backed me up, right? You posted a screen shot showing that there were blue-dot and orange-dot springs. IIRC, Blue is standard; orange is the premium package. They had different rates. That's exactly what I was correcting you for.

Please stop googling and cutting and pasting. If you know the answer, then post it and maybe then include some pictures that you find. If you have to look up the answer on the web, please don't post. The web is filled with nonsense and you could very well end up perpetuating a false idea.

 

[H4G64T]

As to the springs, you do realize that you just backed me up, right? You posted a screen shot showing that there were blue-dot and orange-dot springs. IIRC, Blue is standard; orange is the premium package. They had different rates. That's exactly what I was correcting you for.

Right, so even though the blue spring is only offered in early 95s, I can see how in his 99 he has some super awesome package upgrade, even though 96+ all came with the orange springs.

Not to mention that the production dates that included blue springs don't overlap the production dates that included orange springs, so they were not optional.



I didn't realize looking it up in Mitsubishi's official software was Googling.

 

[jtmcinder]

I am not going to engage you on this, but will point out two things (pseudo-addressed to you) for people who are watching and want to know how to interact appropriately.

First, when you boot something and get corrected, you don't whine and argue; you say something like "oh, wow, thanks." This is what you need to do RE the LSDs in a 2G AWD. Everyone (else) knows that they had two. You have yet to say "oops"; you actually dug that hole deeper.

Second, do not search for a way that you can twist it so that what you said that was wrong could, under some additional conditions, be seen to be correct. Focus on what you said and how that was wrong and, thus, why it was corrected by someone else. Thus, in the case of the springs, go back and look at what you said originally:

- GSX suspensions were all the same as well.

Note how you didn't say that all "GSX suspension for the year of your car were the same"; you said what you wrote above and that is known to be false for many GSXs (and TSi AWDs). The premium package for many years had different springs.

Again, if you spent less time getting worked up about being corrected and more time thinking about how to say things that are both correct and not misleading (at best), then you'll have many fewer problems on this site. Whether I believe that you actually knew about the difference in springs before you looked it up is irrelevant to those reading the thread. What's important is that the idea that all GSXs had the same springs is wrong and could be left there uncorrected.

That's the end of this in public. PM Chris.

 

[H4G64T]

Yet you failed to address how Mitsubishi's own system doesn't even have premium springs. Take a little of your own advice for once.

 

[jtmcinder]

Try comparing M/T to A/T, then. I'm sure that if you try, you'll find sufficient evidence that not all GSX springs are the same. And when you do, I'll be here to ignore your apology.

ps. for those keeping score at home, it doesn't count as "feeding" if what you give is poison

 

[bryanwheat]

According to the pics posted the difference is color is a year specific thing for the rear, and transmission specific for the front. Caps also doesn't have anything listed for a (sport package spring)